Video: Replacing and adjusting pictures

Sometimes when you bring images or pictures into a presentation in PowerPoint, the picture itself isn't perfect. It might need some adjusting or formatting. Well, the good news is you don't need separate photo editing software to handle many of the adjustments. They are built right into PowerPoint. We're going to take a look at some of them right now. On slide 3, we just inserted the image of who we thought was Jim Coyller - maybe it's the wrong image. The first thing we're going to talk about is removing an image and replacing it with something else. Now we could select the image and delete it and then bring in the right image, but there is a better option.

In PowerPoint for Mac 2011 Essential Training, author David Rivers demonstrates how to create effective slideshows and dynamic presentations using the tools in Microsoft PowerPoint 2011. The course provides in-depth instructions for changing the look of presentations: using built-in and custom themes, formatting text, inserting tables and charts, adding pictures and SmartArt drawings, and adding animation. It also shows how to proof presentations and ready them for viewing, and gives details on the different ways to share presentations. Exercise files are included with the course.

Replacing and adjusting pictures

Sometimes when you bring images or pictures into a presentation in PowerPoint,the picture itself isn't perfect.It might need some adjusting or formatting.Well, the good news is you don't need separate photo editing software to handlemany of the adjustments.They are built right into PowerPoint.We're going to take a look at some of them right now.On slide 3, we just inserted the image of who we thought was Jim Coyller - maybeit's the wrong image.The first thing we're going to talk about is removing an image and replacing itwith something else.Now we could select the image and delete it and then bring in the right image,but there is a better option.

First, so let's just adjust this.We'll size it up a little bit and position it little more to the left.This is important. When you replace an image, it's going to stay in the sameplace, and it's going to be the same size.That's why I like it.We'll Ctrl+click or right-click the image, and from the pop-up menu, you'll noticeone for Change Picture, so we'll select that.We'll navigate, and there's the correct picture headshot ofJimC (Headshot_JimC).You can see a preview of it.When we click Insert, it replaces the image.It's the same location, the same size;it's just the different image. I like that!Now with its still selected, you'll also notice the Format Picture tab justappeared on the Ribbon. You can click it.

And the first group is titled Adjust,a whole bunch of adjustment options here for adjusting the image itself.Like I said, we don't have to take the image into a separate piece of softwareto make those changes. We can do a lot of it right from here, like cropping, for example,if you wanted to crop it, crop it to fit, crop out parts of it using the Cropping tool;maybe we want to remove some of the stuff on the left-hand side and then justclick off the image to see the end result. Good!We'll go back to select it, so we can go back to our Formatting options here.

Let's go to Corrections, for example.If you click the Corrections dropdown, you'll see some presets for sharpeningand softening and adjusting brightness and contrast.So I want to make this a little bit brighter and leave the contrast alone.We might go to the third row of options here, the second to last thumbnail, give it a click, andyou'll see the looks a little bit nicer.If you want to fine-tune that though, you can go back to Corrections, and down atthe bottom you have access to picture correction options.Now you can get very detailed with adjusting your picture.

You've got all of the sliders for adjusting transparency of the image.There is Brightness, Contrast.You can see our Brightness is up to 20%. Contrast we left alone, but we canadjust it down a little bit maybe.There's a Sharpening and Softening option here.So if we go to the left, you can see the softer it gets, and we get some artifacting. Doesn't look good.Go to the other direction, and we're sharpening it again.It doesn't look great. So we can use the slider, or you can use the up and downarrows, or simply type in a value if you prefer.There is also a Recoloring option, so if you want to recolor, change thesaturation or temperature, you can do that.

But let's just click OK.Look at the Ribbon again. We've got this Recolor button, and these are some ofthe color saturation, color tones and recoloring presets you can choose from.Then if you needed to, go back down at Picture Color Options from here to makefurther adjustments.So if you wanted to change the saturation to include a little more color or a little less, you can go left.All the way left to zero would be a black and white photo.It would be removing all of the color from the image.You could also cool it down or warm it up from here and choose some Recoloringoptions and special effects, like Sepia, for example.

Now the other thing that I really like about PowerPoint - we'll just click theimage here - is we can remove the background.Notice if we go to slide 4 here, we've done that with Maria, so we should doit with Jim as well.There is a couple of options to try it out. It depends on the background itself.So we'll select the image and click Format Picture.If you go to Recolor, you'll notice down at the bottom you can set a transparentcolor, and this is ideal for working with images with a solid background. Let's try it!If we go to the background, it looks fairly solid, but as we look closely,there is a gradient.

So if we click in the gray area, you can see only a certain shade of gray isremoved, and that didn't work.So we're going to click Undo and try a different option, which is theRemove Background option. I like this!When we click this option, you can see now we've got a border.Anything inside the border is what we're trying to keep;anything outside those colors will be removed, including those colors ifthey appear inside.We've also got, attached to our mouse pointer, a Minus sign for the areasthat are about to be kept and a Plus sign for the shaded area, so we can be very specific.

Let's start by adjusting our border here.We want to make sure we get all of Jim's head. Got to move out to the right.You can see the cropped area on the right-hand side as well. There we go!If we bring it all the way down to the bottom,you can see we're getting all of his head, but we're missing his shirt in this case.So we're pretty close to what we need.We do want to remove this background gray area, but we want to keep the shirt.So when we move into that shaded area, you'll see the Plus sign appear.Now you can click and drag to draw lines, just draw lines down his shirt to keep those areas.

Let's try over here from the top of the shoulder down towards the V in the neck. Perfect!We're keeping that.A little bit here as well.You can click once to add just a spot.That color is preserved.To see the end result, click anywhere outside your picture, and that looks justlike our other one from Maria.All right, so now all we need to do is apply some formatting.If we go to slide 4, you can see there's a shadow back here.There is really no borders.We want to mimic that here on slide 3, so select the image.

When we go to Format Picture, now we're going to focus on the Picture Stylesareas, and there are some presets to choose from.So if you wanted to choose a different kind of border - that doesn't look right,doesn't match our other slides. We'll click Undo.We could also adjust the border from here.If we click the Effects, we have shadow effects.We also has some other options for glows and bevels and reflections.So let's go to Shadow here, and there's the shadow we're looking for,under Perspective, right in the center. Give that a click, and you can see theshadow in the background.

We'll deselect, and there is the end result.It looks very much like our image for Maria.So, although you may not have the perfect image when you insert it into yourslide in PowerPoint, you have a number of tools for adjusting that image builtright in, as well as some formatting options to make them stand out.

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